Stripping the Forms off the Garage Walls

The North Wall with forms...

... and, at the end of the day, without.

The West Wall

with outside forms stripped off and inside forms still there.

Star (with his duct tape collar made by Angela)

and the west wall after the forms were all stripped off.

The South Wall

looking east, with most forms still in place.

Dad had already dug the concrete away from one of the 5 foot forms

and took it out.

Lee cleaning up the bottom of the hold outside the south wall.

(after all the forms had been removed)





Lee, using a grubbing hoe to break up the concrete
that had flowed around to the back of the form.
This was a 5 foot form but the bottom foot has concrete setting up.
If Lee doesn't break up the concrete, the form will be here permanently.






Lee is standing where the form was that Dad dug out.

Lee dug on the outside form while Rick and Mike stripped the inside forms.

Lee took a much needed "texting break".

The hole Lee is standing in and digging in was dug by Mike a few minutes earlier.

(before, the dirt went from the back door almost all the way to the forms)

Lee has got some big chunks of concrete out

and we think the form is almost ready to come out...

...so we called Mike over to help remove the form.

Mike knew just how to remove a stuck form...

You need to hit it with a sledge hammer

and work some 2 x 4's down in.

So you can pry the form off with the leveredge from the 2 x 4.

The concrete is still holding the bottom of the form in place from the outside of the form.

But Lee and Mike working together got it pulled away.

The sledge hammer moved it the last bit.

Now, they have to lift the 5 foot form

with the bottom foot of it filled with concrete
out of the hole.

This is a picture of the bottom of the back of the form.

They took it out the back door

and knocked the concrete out of the form

before it finished hardening.

Then Mike started trying to get the next form off.

After the other forms were off,

Lee went back and cleaned the plywood and wood braces out of the hole.

(the plywood was supposed to keep the concrete from getting behind the form)

(we don't know how it actually got back there)

Mike said that he was amazed at how fast the concrete hardened.

He had seen concrete walls that had sat 12 more hours that were less cured than this was.

They removed the pieces of 2 x 4 that were screwed down to the footing

which held the bottom of the forms in place.

There was enough pressure on the bottom of the forms to bend the bolts.

They removed all the braces and waylers and started removing the forms.

It is getting to be the end of the day. See how sweaty Mike is.

He worked so hard all day long.

Mike was there to help in every tough situation.

Mike always seemed to know what to do to get the tough forms off.

It was cooling off...

... the sun was going down.

We were so happy to be getting the last forms off.

Tomorrow they will haul most of the forms away and ...

...then it won't look like such a construction zone.